Jerry Harvey

Jerry Harvey was born in the late 1940s and came from Bakersfield, California where he and his two sisters were raised in a strict Catholic home by a father who worked as an attorney and judge and a mother who was a hospital administrator. Harvey describes his childhood as not only unhappy but as a cross between "American Graffitti" and "Two Lane Blacktop". His sister Ann definitely committed suicide; she left her family a series of communications stating her reasons for taking her own life. His other sister Mary may have also committed suicide; this has not been confirmed because Jerry would only say sister Mary 'vanished' and would not go into more detail. His background left Harvey paranoid and in need of constant counseling. He fell in love with movies as a child and moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s to attend UCLA. While on campus one day in 1971, he met Douglas Venturelli and became fast friends. Together, they wrote a western script that was produced in Europe and released with the title: "China 9, Liberty 37". Harvey then got a job booking films for the Beverly Canon repertory theater. One of his greatest accomplishments was getting director Sam Peckinpah to deliver an uncut version of "The Wild Bunch" to the Beverly Canon which played to packed houses. When his first wife Vera caught him yelling at their TV because of the lousy programming, Vera urged Jerry to do something about it. After writing an angry letter to the Los Angeles based pay TV service SelectTV, the service not only contacted Harvey but hired him as an assistant film programmer. From there, he became an assistant film programmer for the Z Channel in the early 1980s, another Los Angeles based pay TV service. Harvey eventually became head film programmer for Z and through a combination of connections, aggression and love started booking important films to be shown to Z Channel subscribers. His programming included uncut versions of films such as: "Once Upon a Time in America", "1900" and "Heaven's Gate". At the same time, he would book mainstream studio fare, independent films and even soft core porn on their "Night Owl" series of films. The Z Channel became influential and mandatory viewing for not only film buffs and industry professionals but young filmmakers such as Alexander Payne and Quentin Tarantino. Many fans even looked forward to receiving the Z Channel program guide that included articles by writers such as critic F.X. Feeney. At the same time, established filmmakers such as Peckinpah and Michael Cimino befriended Harvey. After divorcing his first wife Vera in the mid 1980's, the increasingly difficult Harvey fell in love with Deri Rudolph, who owned a building near UCLA where Harvey rented an apartment. They were married a short time later, with Cimino as best man. The Z Channel was eventually sold to a company that tried to combine films with sports programming. This did not sit well with Harvey who protested against this change and struggled to find his path away from the Z Channel. As more and more pressure mounted on Harvey, he seemed unable to cope and in the spring of 1988, he shot his wife Deri to death with a gun given to him by Peckinpah. He then used the gun to kill himself. The Z Channel went out of business in 1989. Harvey's main legacy is discovering the appeal of the "Director's Cut" of a film and the value in showing films from companies other than the major studios. Jerry Harvey's career is the subject of the documentary film "Z Channel, a Magnificent Obession".